Horrifying Study Finds Hospital Patients More Likely To Die At Certain Time Of Week

Crain's:

Patients who are injured on the weekend are more likely to have a fatal outcome than those who are hospitalized on a weekday, a Johns Hopkins study found.

The review of 38,675 patient medical records found that older adults who suffer head trauma over the weekend are more likely to die than their counterparts who are injured during the workweek, according to a news release.

Read the whole story at Crain's

Comments

[jamesw34677]

12:41 PM on 08/07/2012

The days of doctors working day and night are gone. They only work certain hours because the studies show that they may suffer a little stress if they work longer than 4 hours.

[CPAwADD]

03:37 PM on 08/08/2012

Which is why do much of the hospital work is done by hospitalists, at least at larger hospitals.

[Raccoon1]

10:25 AM on 08/07/2012

Oh. I would have guessed that it had something to do with the hospital's profit/loss statement.

[OleLadySquawking]

09:46 AM on 08/07/2012

Long holiday weekends and any holiday period where the most people take the longest time off is another killer. I know I'm a nurse and I've seen what the lack of experienced staff does to a patient. My father and brother suffered major complications while the doctors were at play and the nurses were overwhelmed or under-experienced.

[TedEjr]

09:42 AM on 08/07/2012

Two quotes from the article---There isn't a medical reason for worse results on weekends--And--The study suggested that weekend care may suffer from reduced staffing levels, including a lack of immediate access to specialists. (END)

I would hypothesize that sentence one is correct but not in they way that they thought, and sentence two is only part of the story.

It has long been stated that you don't want to have a surgery on Monday or Friday. Why? Because the surgical staff are "recovering" from the weekend on Monday, and on Friday they are preoccupied mentally with the weekend, and/or in a hurry to "get out of the office". Ergo, more mistakes are made.

On the weekend accidents are more likely to be severe and at a higher incidence because you have people off and engaging in activities they would not be doing during the week.

So, combine the factors. More injuries, which are more severe than the week, and hospital staff which are themselves more likely to be playing/celebrating (And not fully alert mentally) along with fewer staff and you now have a complete picture of the reason for the results.

[blisster]

09:34 AM on 08/07/2012

They could try the 19th Hole Emergency Clinic.

[IfIonlyknew]

09:30 AM on 08/07/2012

Back in the seventy's if you wanted to by a good new car you would have to specify that wanted a car that was made on wednesday,Cars that were made in the middle of the week had the least problems.Cars that were made on monday or friday were always lemons.

[TedEjr]

09:44 AM on 08/07/2012

True.

And they STILL say don't do things, get services, on Monday or Friday. Haircuts for one. Also, surgery.